The Deacons and W. W. Beman, H. N Chute all churches have. We need more and Wm. Goodyear. TREASURER. W. W. Beman, No. 19 S. Fifth St. CLERK. W. H. Dorrance, Jr., No. 42 S. Ingalls Street. Superintendent, C. M. Stark; Asst. A. Tucker; year; Librarians, E. E. Mains, J. P. Bird; Chorister, J. R. Sage; Pianist, Miss Jennie Bird. SOCIETIES AND COMMITTEES, Deacons, S. S. Sup't, and Dr. Haskell. Fi ance Com.-Messrs. Beman, Snauble and Chute Com. on Sittings-Messrs. W. H. Dorrance, Sr.. Dodsl y and Goodyear. Com. on Music-The Trustees. Ushers Messrs. Snauble, Feiner, Chute, Dodsley, excuse : ford to do without a general attend- aside for it. than the single day's services on Sunday, and we need something different from them. We need a less formal and more familiar gathering to supplement the public preaching the whole membership of the church Bec. and Treas., H. N. Shute, Asst., Wm. Good service and the Sunday school. The that each one make the mid-week Wednesday evening meeting is dis- church meeting "a previous engageLet all other things stand Com. on Membership and Discipline-Pastor, church. In it we see the church at tinctively the family meeting of the ment." If you cannot get the home, not in the parlor, but in the whole of it, get half of it, but do living-room. The mid-week meet- not come late for any but a good reason. Come regularly. Come ing is the very heart of the church life. Members of the family come and take some part in the meeting if nearer to each other there than any. you can; but come at any rate and where else. One can come and go to the preaching services, month after month, and in our church, with its many strangers, no real acquaint ance may be made with the rest of the church family; but no one comes regularly to the Wednesday evening meeting without finding it an easy matter to become truly acquainted. Goodyear and Dowdigan. Ladies' Foreign Mission Society-Mrs. Carman, Pres.; Mrs. Sollis, Sec. Ladies' Home Mission Society-Mrs. Stevens, Pres. Mrs. Doig, Sec. Ladies' Society-Mrs Goodyear, Sec. Nowland, Pres.; Mrs. Young Peoples' Society-Pres., H. A. Macy. Temple Builders' Miss Helen Woodin, Pres.; Miss Mona Tucker, Sec. SCHEDULE OF BENEVOLENT CONTRIBUTIONS. Second Sunday in June subscription for Min ister's Home, payable first Sunday in July. Second Sunday in September, subscriptions for State Missions, payable first Sunday in October Second Sunday in November, subscription for Home Missions, payable second Sunday in De cember. Second Sunday in January, subscription for Foreign Missions, payable second Sunday in February. Second Sunday in March, subscriptions for Ministerial Education, payable second Sunday in April. Last Sunday in each Month, collection for expenses of the Sunday School. meet the other members of the fam ily. We have excellent meetings, but we will have far better ones if you will all come. We do as well probaby as most churches, but we do not do nearly well enough. Make the mid-week meeting a regular engagement! Dr. Hulbert's Visit. It seems a strange thing to be arSunday evening, Feb. 15th, we guing thus for the need of this meet- were favored with a remarkable and ing. But it seems certain that not stirring sermon, by Prof. E. B. Hulall of our members feel this meeting bert, D. D., of the Theological Semas indispensible as others do, and inary, at Morgan Park. Dr. Hulbert as the reasons just named would spent the Sabbath and Monday with make it. For very few of our people his daughter, who is a student in the is it an easy matter to attend this University, on his way with Mrs. mid-week meeting. Distance, ill- Hulbert, for a six month's trip to health, or a constant pressure of Europe, Egypt and Palestine. wearying work, make it very diffi. cult for the most of our members to Some persons spend so much time attend. But the truth is-we can- in making promises that they have not any of us afford to do without no time to fulfil them. "T FRIENDSHIP. HERE muse I of old times, old hopes, old friends— Old friends! The writing of those words has borne My fancy backward to the gracious past, The generous past, when all was possible, For all was then untried; the years between Have taught some sweet, some bitter lessons, none Wiser than this,-to spend in all things else, But of old friends to be most miserly. Each year to ancient friendships adds a ring, As to an oak, and precious more and more, Without deservingness or help of ours, They grow, and silent, wider spread each year, Their unbought ring of shelter or of shade. Sacred to me the lichens on the bark, Which Nature's milliners would scrape away; Most dear and sacred every withered limb! 'Tis good to set them early, for our faith Pines as we age, and, after wrinkles come, Few plant, but water dead ones with vain tears. -James Russell Lowell. THE MEASURES AND OFFICES OF FRIENDSHIP. You U first inquire, how far a dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity? To this, I answer: that the word "friendship" in the sense we commonly mean by it, is not so much as named in the New Testament; and our religion takes no notice of it. You think it strange; but read on before you spend so much as the beginning of a passion or a wonder upon it. There is mention of "friendship with the world," and it is said to be "enmity with God;" but the word is nowhere else named, or to any other purpose, in all the New Testament. It speaks of friends often; but by friends are meant our acquaintance, or our kindred, the relatives of our family, or our fortune, or our sect; something of society, or something of kindness, there is in it; a tenderness of appellation and civility, a relation made by gifts, or by duty, by services and subjection; and I think I have reason to be confident, that the word "friend" (speaking of human intercourse) is no otherwise used in the Gospels, or Epistles, or Acts of the Apostles: and the reason of it is, the word friend is of a large signification; and means all relations and societies, and whatsoever is not enemy. But by friendships, I suppose you mean the greatest love, and the greatest usefulness, and the most open communication, and the noblest sufferings and the most exemplary faithfulness, and the severest truth, and the heartiest counsel, and the greatest union of minds, of which brave men and women are capable. But then I must tell you that Christianity hath new christened it, and calls this charity. The Christian knows no enemy he hath; that is, though persons may be injurious to him, and unworthy in themselves, yet he knows none whom he is not first bound to forgive, which is indeed to make them on his part to be no enemies, that is, to make that the word enemy shall not be perfectly contrary to friend, it shall not be a relative term, and signify something on each hand, a relative and a correlation; and then he knows none whom he is not bound to love and pray for, to treat kindly and justly, liberally and obligingly. Christian charity is friendship to all the world; and when friendships were the noblest things in the world, charity was little, like the sun drawn in at a chink, or his beams drawn into the centre of a burning glass; but Christian charity is friendship expanded like the face of the sun when it mounts above the eastern hills. So that to your question, "how far a dear and perfect friendship is authorized by the principles of Christianity," the answer is ready and easy: it is warranted to extend to all mankind; and the more we love, the better we are; and the greater our friendships are, the dearer we are to God. Let them be as dear, and let them be as perfect, and let them be as many as you can; there is no danger in it; only where the restraint begins, there begins our imperfection. It is not ill that you entertain brave friendships and worthy societies; it were well if could love and if you could benefit all mankind; for I conceive that is the sum of all friendship. you For the good man is a profitable, useful person, and that is the band of an effective friendship. For I do not think that friendships are metaphysical nothings, created for contemplation, or that men or women should stare upon each other's faces and make dialogues of news and prettinesses, and look babies in one another's eyes. Friendship is the allay of our sorrows, the ease of our passions, the discharge of our oppressions, the sanctuary to our calamities, the counsellor of our doubts, the charity of our minds, the emission of our thoughts, the exercise and improvement of what we meditate. And although I love my friend because he is worthy, yet he is not worthy if he can do me no good. * * He only is fit to be chosen for a friend who can give counsel, or defend my cause, or guide me right, or relieve my need, or can and will when I need it, do me good: only this I add, into the heaps of doing good, I will reckon, loving me, for it is a pleasure to be beloved, but * Choose for your friend him that is wise and good, and secret and just, ingenious and honest: and in those things which have a latitude, use your own liberty; but in such things which consist in an indivisible point make no abatements; that is, you must not choose him to be your friend that is not honest and secret, just and true to a tittle; but if he be wise at all, and useful in any degree, and as good as you can have him, you need not be ashamed to own your friendships; though sometimes you may be ashamed of some imperfections of your friend. When I choose my friend, I will not stay till I have received a kindness: but I will choose such a one that can do me many if I need them but I mean such kindnesses which make me wiser, and which make me better: that is, I will, when I choose my friend, choose him that is the bravest, the worthiest, and the most excellent person; and then your first question is soon answered. To love such a person, and to contract such friendships, is just so authorized by the principles of Christianity, as it is warranted to love wisdom and virtue, goodness and beneficence, and all the impresses of God upon the spirits of brave men.-Jeremy Taylor. A VIGOROUS old age is able to accomplish, out of all proportion, more than several careers, however brilliant, cut short in youth. THE large proportion of sins committed against the laws of right are done without reflection, and many of them are bitterly repented of too late. CLEAR thoughts patiently worked out and freely interchanged before action is called for, are the only means of making that action wise, permanent and effective. THE nobler a man truly is, the stronger is his desire to live a yet richer and worthier life; the more valuable his work the more earnestly does he long to improve upon it. DELAY is fatal to all social well-being and happiness. In our relations with others nothing is more needful than to do quickly that which we are able to do for their comfort and pleasure. NOTHING dies-not even life, which gives up one form only to receive another. No good action, no good example, no generous endeavor, dies; it lives for ever in our race. TIMIDITY creates cowards and never wins success. It is a strong and abiding faith in one's own ability to perform, which overcomes difficulties that others think cannot be surmounted. No gentleman will ever use the power which the knowledge of an offence, a false step, or an unfortunate exposure of weakness, gives him merely to enjoy the power of humiliating his neighbor. "THERE is time enough for everything in the course of the year," says Lord Chesterfield, "if you do but one thing at once; but there is not time enough in the year if you will do two things at a time." A BUSY life, with good principles, strong purposes, and wisdom enough to secure a fair cultivation of the different sides of the nature, is one of the most important factors for securing a ripe and happy old age. THE man who can command his appetite owes thereto length of days; and not length of days merely, not mere continuity of existence, but that which alone gives continuity to substantial valuenamely, power to enjoy. The Home. MY KATE. HE was not as pretty as women I know, And yet all your best made of sunshine and snow Drop to shade, melt to naught in the long trodden ways, Her air had a meaning, her movements a grace; Such a blue inner light from her eyelids outbroke, I doubt if she said to you much that could act As a thought or suggestion; she did not attract 'Twas her thinking of others, made you think of her— She never found fault with you, never implied None knelt at her feet confessed lovers in thrall; If you praised her as charming, some asked what you meant, My Kate. The weak and the gentle, the ribald and rude, She took as she found them, and did them all good; It always was so with her-see what you have! She has made the grass greener even here with her grave— My Kate. My dear one!--when thou was't alive with the rest, I held thee the sweetest and loved thee the best; And now thou art dead, shall I not take thy part A --Elizabeth Barrett Browning. FOR AHAPPY DAY. T the beginning of the day take a large amount of good nature, and double the quantity of determination to make the best of things, a heaping measure of bodily vigor, and mix well in the mortar of gratitude with the pestle of the remembrance of past mercies. A season of prayer and praise is always necessary to a proper mixture of these ingredients. Then add to this a considerable, but not too large a portion of well-regulated tongue, a slice of charity that thinketh no evil and is not easily provoked, a portion of hopefulness for the future, and a large measure of faith in God and fellow-men. Season this with the salt of shrewdness and thrift, and sweeten with plenty of the sugar of love for all of God's creatures. Put in a large handful of plums of parental, or filial affection, or conjugal devotion and a number of pieces of neighborly friendliness, and somewhere in the day conceal one special service for the Lord's poor. Slide this good deed into the mixture quietly, without saying anything about it. Do not use any of the sour milk of disappointed hopes or brooding cares, for this will spoil the whole; and while there should be a pinch of the pepper of fun, and considerable sweet oil of joviality, do not use any of the mustard of backbiting, or the table sauce of slander. Let the mixture simmer gently, but do not let it boil over, for the delicate flavor of the ingredients is injured by too much heat.-Golden Rule. EFFECT OF PLEASANT SMILES AND KIND WORDS. How many there are in this world that need to be helped along by a little kindness. They are hungering for the little, kind words. which are never spoken; a word spoken in season! If each one of us would resolve to do what little deeds of kindess we could, I think we would be surprised at the result. We might lighten many a heart by the pleasant smiles and kind words-and they cost us so little! There are plenty of sad hearts and heart-aches in this world; let us try to make one of these sad hearts happy. A contented face, the bright smile and the happy heart will do an unspeakable amount of good. A dear friend said to me a short time ago: "If I only had the money I would do much good in the world." Ab, my dear friends, money will not do everything, and pleasant smiles and kind words are sometimes more acceptable than bags of gold. This reminds me of a beautiful poem I have just read in which are these lines: "And let no chance by me be lost I shall not pass this way again; A helping hand to this one lend, May some one say— --Ladies Home Journal. |